This invention relates to the field of wall-form components for building concrete walls and more specifically, bridging webs which are used to maintain wall-form panels at a specific distance in a parallel relationship to each other.
Conventionally, concrete walls are constructed first by constructing wooden wall-forms and then placing concrete into the space provided between them. Once the concrete hardens, the wooden wall-forms are removed and the walls are insulated and finished as required. This type of construction is time-consuming and wasteful in manpower and material resources. Furthermore, high energy costs for heating and cooling requires that such concrete walls have adequate thermal insulation particularly in regions of extreme climatic conditions.
As a result of continued advancements in the construction industry, many improvements have been introduced in the past several years. New construction materials and building techniques have emerged, one of which is the Insulated Concrete Forming (ICF) System. Currently there are a wide variety of different ICF systems available on the market, all of which are used for building concrete structures.
Some ICF systems currently on the market use a pair of wall-panels to construct wall-forms for the placement of concrete. The panels may remain as part of the wall insulation. The panels are often held in a spaced and parallel relationship by a number of bridging webs. The bridging webs are mounted at each end between the panels. Therefore, a right-hand and a left-hand panel need to be selected. In addition, the wall forms are pre-assembled at a factory and then transported to the construction site. Because the bridging webs may be embedded within the panels, relatively few wall forms can be transported within a given volume due to the spacing provided by the bridging webs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,462 issued to Beliveau proposes an interesting solution to the problem of transporting spaced-apart wall panels. In this system, the bridging webs are composed of two identical end sections embedded within each wall form and a central section spanning the distance between the two end sections. The central section is hingedly connected to the end sections, allowing the panels to fold against one another.
One disadvantage of this system, however, is that the end sections cannot be easily formed using an injection molding process. Multiple steps are required in the injection molding process or the hinge would involve multiple pieces affixed to one another. The additional molding steps required add significantly to the costs involved in manufacturing the webs, offsetting some of the cost savings arising from reduced transportation costs.